
The Benefits of Building Your Own Home
Are you ready to take the plunge and build your own home? It’s a big decision that requires a lot of thought, but it can also be incredibly rewarding.
Building your own home is a project full of ambition and luxury, allowing you to design and customise your dream house in exactly the way you want. This is the most exciting part of the overall home building process.
However, there are both pros and cons to building your own house that need to be taken into consideration. Let’s take a closer look at what they are.
Pros of Building Your Own House
Customisation
One of the greatest benefits of building your own house is that you have complete control over its design and structure. You can choose everything from the floor plan to the materials used for construction, ensuring that it perfectly reflects your taste and style.
Plus, if you have any special requests or modifications in mind, these can be accommodated as part of the building process.
Pay for What You Want
Another significant advantage to building your own home is that you only pay for what you want. You have choice and flexibility. You can choose to spend more in the key areas, such as kitchens and bathrooms, but then pare back your spending on other items.
You can also choose to include items that would be hard to retrofit later. For example air conditioning is something that should be included in your build, whereas lighting is something that can be upgraded relatively easily after you move in.
Save on Stamp Duty
Whether you buy an existing home or an empty block of land, stamp duty must be paid.
However, an empty block of land is cheaper than a block of land with an existing home on it. This means there is less stamp duty to be paid as the stamp duty is a percentage of the cost of the land you purchase.
While this is not obvious to everyone, this can save thousands of dollars that you can then use to build the home you really want.
Lower Ongoing Maintenance
Building new homes also tends to require less ongoing maintenance than older homes do – simply because newer materials last longer than older ones do.
This means fewer repairs over time as well as lower replacement costs for things like roofing or windows down the line.
You also receive new product warranties when you move into a newly built home. So you have the added peace of mind, knowing that it something does go wrong, you are likely covered.
Better Energy Efficiency
New builds tend to use higher-quality materials than older houses – meaning they are better insulated from outside temperatures both hot and cold. This makes them more energy efficient overall.
On top of that, there are strict energy efficiency ratings in Western Australia that need to be met in order for a new home to be approved. New homes often have an energy rating of 7 stars or above, which naturally means they not only will reduce your power bills but also help reduce your environmental impact.
Benefit from Government Grants
Depending on your situation, there may also be government grants available if you are planning to build a new home from scratch.
These grants can provide financial assistance for first-home builders or even towards things like stamp duty.
All in all, building your own house has many advantages – but there are some potential drawbacks too which should always be taken into account before starting any project like this one.
The Cons of Building Your Own Home
So let’s now have a look at the drawbacks of building your own home.
Time-Consuming
The first con of building your own home is that it is likely going to be a bit more time-consuming than buying an existing home.
It takes a lot of time and effort to build a house from scratch. This includes finding the right builder, choosing the right materials for construction, dealing with inspections, and more.
While you are able to pretty much customise anything you want, It will take 12 - 24 months or more before you can move into your new home.
Project Delays
Another disadvantage of building your own home is the potential for project delays.
Building a house from scratch can involve unexpected delays due to weather conditions or other unforeseen circumstances such as material or labour shortages. These delays can cause frustration and potentially add additional costs.
A good example of this was during the pandemic, when building materials were in short supply due to transport issues.
Unexpected Costs
Building a house from scratch can also have unexpected costs associated with it.
These costs can quickly add up and cause severe financial strain if they are not planned for in advance.
This is the single most important reason to carefully choose your home builder. An experienced home builder like Novus Homes with almost 30 years of experience in building luxury homes in Perth will be able to provide you with a fixed price contract that includes everything from start to finish - so there are no nasty surprises.
Land Close to the CBD is Getting Hard to Find
In the greater Perth metropolitan area, land close to the CBD is becoming increasingly difficult to find.
This means that if you want to build your own home in one of these areas then you may have difficulty finding an affordable piece of land on which to do so.
However you can partner with a real estate agent or home builder to help you find the perfect block of land in Perth.
Less Space & Smaller Lots in New Developments
Another drawback is that many new developments have smaller lots than those found in older neighbourhoods which means less space available on which to build a custom home.
This can limit the type of design options available when planning out the layout of your dream house since there won’t be as much room as you would have had with larger lots available in older neighbourhoods or rural areas outside the Perth CBD.
However, here at Novus Homes we not only have many pre-designed homes available to suit any lot size, our in-house design team can also design a custom home for your lot, no matter how big or small it may be.
In Summary
Despite these drawbacks, building your own custom home remains an attractive option for those who want their living space tailored perfectly for them without having to settle for something off-the-shelf that may not fit their individual needs or desires.
In order for such an ambitious project to be successful it’s important that potential builders understand all of the pros and cons involved before jumping headfirst into such endeavours in order to avoid any unfortunate surprises along the way.
Here at Novus Homes we want to make sure you know all of the steps involved with building your dream home before signing off on anything.
Get in touch with one of our building consultants today and let’s see if we are a good fit.